After the incredible success of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick began working on a large-scale biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte. He created a 150-page screenplay, set to feature Jack Nicholson, Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness and Charlotte Rampling but this epic movie was canceled by MGM due to spiraling costs. A new book from Taschen reveals more about this greatest film that was never made.

According to reports the film was was budgeted at $5.2m – (about $100m today), and was the most expensive production ever at the time. United Artists also took on the project, but also later bailed out. Kubrick was apparantely still talking about it in the 80s - perhaps as a TV series. A draft of the screenplay was randomnly found in a storage facility in a Kansas salt mine in 1994.

Fast forward forty years and publisher Taschen has released a limited-edition tribute to this unmade masterpiece making Kubrick’s unseen work on Napoleon available to  those who have 500 Euro to spare. Readers can peruse a selection of Kubrick’s correspondence, various costume studies, location scouting photographs, research material, script drafts, and more, each category of material in its own book. 

Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made - available from Taschen.

One of the book's volumes features the complete original treatment, essays examining the screenplay in historical and dramatic contexts, an essay by Jean Tulard on Napoleon in cinema, and a transcript of interviews Kubrick conducted with Oxford professor Felix Markham.

Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made - available from Taschen.

The culmination of years of research and preparation, the book offers budding filmmakers the opportunity to experience the creative process of one of cinema’s greatest talents as well as a fascinating exploration of the enigmatic figure that was Napoleon Bonaparte.

To take a closer look at the book or to buy a copy see www.taschen.com//stanley_kubricks_napoleon

Source & Photo Credits: Taschen